And if you have been watching 1-2 episodes a day for several months, shouldn't you be paying an extra rate and shouldn't I get a discount? I haven't had near 28-56 anime episodes to watch in a month for several years (though I would have to plough that discount back into a drama premium in those times when I marathon a historical K-drama ~ I'm looking at you Yi San & Great Queen Seondeok!!!)

Decision does not imply selection (or lack thereof) - there's a difference between having a lack of shows to watch due to differing tastes or having a lack of shows to watch due to a lack of selection.

Yes, there's a distinction. But its a distinction without a difference. Whether Crunchyroll does not have the anime I want because I am in the wrong region, or Crunchyroll does not have the anime I want because Crunchyroll did not license the anime at all, Crunchyroll is still failing to offer me all the anime I want.

"Its not fair" that I have to pay the same price to watch three anime on Crunchyroll and two anime by some other means when another subscriber gets five anime they want to watch licensed for them by Crunchyroll.

Except, there's another way of looking at it whether it is a fair price. I decided that having access to those three series was worth the price to me. So its a fair price to me. Person B decided that having access to those five series was worth the price to them. So its a fair price to them.

And here's the thing: offered the choice you are suggesting, where over 80% of people end up pays higher prices but some people's price increase is bigger than other people's price increase ... I rather have Person B pay the same low price as me instead of the satisfaction that "its fair" that my price went up 20% and his went up 40%.

That's what you are skipping. For a very large number of non-NA members, some kind of complicated discount model based on access, which means changing the discount every three months based on which countries got which series licensed to them ~ its not only a nightmare (people complaining, "don't pick up shows like that, I don't like them!!!, you are just trying to drive my subscription price up to North American levels") ~ but its a discount from a higher North American subscription price. There's no way you set up a complicated pricing system with all sorts of rules and exceptions and qualifiers without hiring people to run the complicated pricing system.

And hiring people costs money. Which has to come out of the subscription revenue. So subscription revenues have to rise.

20% off $10 is no better off than $8 with no discount. Indeed, since some North American subscribers will drop in outrage at the price hike, and so Japanese royalty revenue from Crunchyroll will drop, so fewer licensors will be interested in licensing directly to Crunchyroll, so everyone gets less anime ...
... 20% discount off $10/month for even fewer series than today, that's a worse deal.

Because the complex option is pure overhead, and does not flow through to Japan, it does not help solve the problem!!!

My suggestion is, instead of trying to set up some complicated system trying to make things fair country by country, offer an additional choice that makes things more attractive to someone who has fewer than three series worth of shows that they are interested in paying to watch.

That's the "series sampler" idea. Add a new subscription option. Its a subscription lined up to the broadcast seasons, for the price of one month's subscription. Someone gets to watch the first episode of all anime available in their region ad-free, and they get to add two series as premium series. They get three months premium access to each episode in the series they pick, from the time that it streams.

Its a nice stable subscription model. No need to recompute everything for every different combination of license restrictions, no need to spend support staff time answering questions of "why do 3 minute series count", "why don't 3 minute series count", etc. ... much less overhead. The new subscription account itself can carry the data of which two series have been picked. Its some work setting it up ~ so would the complicated access limitation discount model ~ but once its up and running its not an ongoing nightmare to run.

KaiserSoseiwrote: Now if the studios and distributors are OK with sales only going to the most hardcore or those of us with significant disposable income, then fine. But if they expect the market to grow and sales figures to significantly increase, it's clear what they have to do.

In Japan, the purchase of physical media for much anime that is produced has long been mostly for the hard core collectors, since before the DVD back in VHS tape days, with income from the regular viewers coming from sales to rental outfits, merchandise sales, and (back before the TV ratings collapsed) advertising income.

North America has had the lowest DVD price points in the developed world, and Japan some of the highest, so there has long been this clash of cultures.

So are subsidiaries of Japanese firms like Aniplex USA comfortable with physical media collecting being only for the hardcore and the rest of us watching via streaming or from a specialist anime-rent-by-mail outfit ... sure, sure they are.

Now, AniplexUSA set the MSRP for half-season DVD's at $37.48 with a real RightStuf price (they link straight through to RightStuf as the order link from their own website) at $30. So that's $60/broadcast-season, which is right in line with normal mainstream series first release price points. Now, sure, that means that they are not going to get a lot of "blind buy", "hey, this looks interesting, lets try it out" sales, but then again its streaming on Crunchyroll, Hulu, Crackle and Anime News Network, so they aren't going for those sales, they are going for "I love this series I have got to own a copy!" sales.

PMM, they are selling the DVDs for $30 for a single, so $90 for a single broadcast season.

For Blue Exorcist, they think: $60 times the extra sales at $60 is worth more than $30 (the $90 price premium) times the sales at $90.

For PMMM, they think: $60 times the extra sales at $60 is worth less than $30 (the $90 price premium) times the sales at $90.

Both of those seem kind of reasonable to me. PMMM will have a lot of people who absolutely have to have it if they can scrape together the money, and a lot of people who "love it" but who would say at $60 per season, "it should be a $40 box set", and at $40, "why isn't is $20 for the complete season?". I expect Blue Exorcist actually will have a number of people saying, "well, if its $60 for this or $60 for that FUNimation season release, I'll get the Blue Exorcist this month".

Yes it's true there will always be someone who will complain at any price point about why it isn't cheaper. Thus my assertion that the market sets the price as in most things. Right now that seems to be around the $30-$40 price range for a complete season. That seems to be the going rate for most boxed sets of domestic shows being sold on places like Amazon or Best Buy last I checked.

Guess I should also note that since the Japanese tend to target the hardcore collector market they usually tend to include a bunch of extras in their releases to entice their customers to spend their money on shows they probably already recorded the TV broadcast of. I know for the LE "Saki" box set they included a complete Ma-jong game set, and most series like PMMM they include things like character/drama CD's copies of the OST,....etc....., much of which would be lost on most of the American fan base that isn't fluent in Japanese. So yeah there's definitely a culture divide there.

On the issue of licensing restrictions, I've always wondered.....Isn't there a way to send the announcements of newly acquired shows only to the regions that are getting them? If everyone in the world sees the same home page on CR, do these new series announcements need to be listed there. Couldn't these threads be listed on another part of the site where the threads will be visible only if the info pertains to that particular region? I know it'll be impossible to keep these things a total secret and that anyone who even looks at the forums and sees threads on a particular show can find out a show might be available on this site in some other countries but not their own., but at least it won't be blasted right in their face like "Hey, just wanted to point out there's this new show we just added, but sorry, it's not for you, but just wanted to let you know".

Seems to me that would solve a lot of the problem, as a couple posters pointed out it won't be like they were just rubbing it in their faces. If i was in another country I wouldn't need info such as this. I'd just want to know what is available in my region. I'd want the list of stuff I see to only be stuff I can watch, and none of this clicking on a title only to see a message saying "sorry, not available in your area". Then I'd be able to see the entire list of stuff I can watch and decide if it's worth i to me to pay for a premium subscription.

KaiserSoseiwrote: Yes it's true there will always be someone who will complain at any price point about why it isn't cheaper. Thus my assertion that the market sets the price as in most things. Right now that seems to be around the $30-$40 price range for a complete season. That seems to be the going rate for most boxed sets of domestic shows being sold on places like Amazon or Best Buy last I checked.

Looking at some new releases at right stuff, $40 for the thinpack single season Marimite, $54 for Princess Jellyfish LE, DVD/BD ~ Aniplex at $30 for half-season volumes DVD, $40 for a half season volume BD brackets the high end. If they are aiming for those who absolutely love the series, the idea must be they can scrape together that much.

Guess I should also note that since the Japanese tend to target the hardcore collector market they usually tend to include a bunch of extras in their releases to entice their customers to spend their money on shows they probably already recorded the TV broadcast of. I know for the LE "Saki" box set they included a complete Ma-jong game set, and most series like PMMM they include things like character/drama CD's copies of the OST,....etc....., much of which would be lost on most of the American fan base that isn't fluent in Japanese. So yeah there's definitely a culture divide there.

The "sale" price of the PMMM LE is the same at Rightstuf or here, ~$75/volume, so $225 for a 12 ep series. Yowza. My vehicle to get to work costs less.

On the issue of licensing restrictions, I've always wondered.....Isn't there a way to send the announcements of newly acquired shows only to the regions that are getting them?

I don't know, but getting the "North American members will be receiving ..." so it shows up before the "more" link and at least people can skip clicking through sure as heck is not rocket science. It just requires a commitment to professionalism from the staff writers to have a checklist and go through it.

On the issue of licensing restrictions, I've always wondered.....Isn't there a way to send the announcements of newly acquired shows only to the regions that are getting them?

I don't know, but getting the "North American members will be receiving ..." so it shows up before the "more" link and at least people can skip clicking through sure as heck is not rocket science. It just requires a commitment to professionalism from the staff writers to have a checklist and go through it.

Interesting idea, but 2 problems I can see off the bat might be 1) what if the release is not just for NA, but for several other regions also? The heading might be something like "North American Members, plus W and X and Y and Z regions...etc....will be receiving...." and the list could get long. And 2) Even if they listed all that and added the words "will be receiving....." that would still be kind of discouraging for some members in other countries if they kept seeing those kinds of announcements and continually didn't see their region listed. Plus there's that whole curiosity issue of peeps wanting to look at it just because the link is there right in front of them with those words "will be receiving".

I wonder if it'd be possible to post a link to the thread at the very top of the home page when a person first logs in. Y'know that little colored bar that says "Welcome back...." and then has your username? Maybe in that same bar they could add "....we have new shows added. Click Here" and have the hyperlink to the thread there for members in the regions getting the shows. Or maybe add a button at the very top next to where the mailbox icons are that tell you when you have new mail or have been awarded an achievement. I bet those could be set so announcements go by region. I wonder how hard that would be. Anybody think maybe I should suggest that?